Architectural Techniques Research Articles

From Soil to Domes: Vernacular Architecture and Construction Techniques in Esfahak, South Khurasan

ABSTRACT This article examines construction techniques of earthen vernacular architecture, with a particular focus on traditional construction processes of mud brick vaults and domes in contemporary Iran. The village of Esfahak, in South Khurasan, is selected as a case study due to its unique historical circumstances, traditional buildings and construction methods, and recent restoration activities carried out by villagers. The village was damaged by an earthquake in 1978 and abandoned for 30 years until a group of Esfahakis decided to restore their ruined earthen houses. This marked the start of an intergenerational exchange that allowed young villagers to train alongside old masters in a process of rediscovery of long-time abandoned construction techniques. The old village has been reconnected to the lives of current residents, while the reconstructed buildings continue to bear witness to the millennial knowledge and skills of erecting vaults and domes from the plateau’s arid soil. This article is based on fieldwork research on building sites and interviews with craftsmen in Esfahak, combined with a review of existing literature on traditional and historical construction techniques in the Persian world.

Constructing a Blueprint of a Kolek

Kolek, a Malay Traditional Boat, is slowly forgotten by the younger generation due to several reasons. In this paper, an in-depth study was conducted to construct a Kolek blueprint for preservation using the Reverse Engineering method on the existing artifact in Malay Traditional Boat Yard located at Pulau Duyung. The study was conducted through several phases namely boat measurement, digitization, and analyses. As a result, a Kolek Lines Plan was produced using Rhinoceros 5 for reference by future generations. Then analyses were carried out using PolyCAD version 10.4 to obtain hydrostatic properties of the Kolek for its stability, and resistance to determine the power requirements needed for the Kolek. The results show the blueprint of the Kolek that can be develop as well as mechanical properties of the Kolek can be obtained using modern naval architecture techniques. This blueprint can be used to build new boats by the next generation using the hybrid method which is a combination of modern and traditional methods.

Dynamic Dataflow Scheduling and Computation Mapping Techniques for Efficient Depthwise Separable Convolution Acceleration

Depthwise separable convolution (DSC) has become one of the essential structures for lightweight convolutional neural networks. Nevertheless, its hardware architecture has not received much attention. Several previous hardware designs incur either high off-chip memory traffic or large on-chip memory usage, and hence have deficiency in terms of hardware efficiency as well as performance. This paper proposes two efficient dynamic design techniques, i.e. adaptive row-based dataflow scheduling and adaptive computation mapping, to achieve a much better trade-off between hardware efficiency and performance for DSC-based lightweight CNN accelerator. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed dynamic design techniques have been extensively evaluated using six DSC-based lightweight CNNs. Compared with the reference architectures, the simulation results show the proposed architectural techniques can at least reduce on-chip buffer size by 50.4% and improve the performance of convolution calculation by 1.18× while maintaining the minimum off-chip memory traffic. MobileNetV2 is implemented on Zynq UltraScale+ ZCU102 SoC FPGA, and the results show the proposed accelerator can achieve 381.7 frames per second (fps), which is 1.43× of the reference design, and it can save about 36.3% on-chip buffer size compared with the reference design, while maintaining the same off-chip memory traffic.

Daylighting of the Newest Christian Churches

Semantic and spatial changes in the options for using daylight compared to tradition are presented, based on the analysis of the architectural solutions applied in a number of modern Christian churches. According to popular belief, sunlight is used in most modern temples only as an architectural technique proving the skill of an architect, and as a means of interior decoration. The study showed that behind the abstract modern methods of illumination a temple, there is a deep connection with the earlier cultural tradition. Sunlight was one of the key means used for decorating interiors of Christian churches. The light pouring from windows of the dome drum or cutting through the twilight of the extended naves, highlighting an apse with the altar, or emphasizing the beauty of the sculpture, was the conductor of the Divine on earth. The quintessence of the presentation of “divine light” in architecture, which clearly shows the connection between God and man, are the Gothic monuments. From the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century, temple architecture was rapidly changing. Renowned innovator architects of the 20th century offered their own vision of a modern temple. The extreme degree of individualization of the new objects of cult was based on a common principle: the rejection of the symbolic language traditional for Christianity. The architects were not tied to metaphors and images of biblical subjects. They boldly changed both the external appearance of a temple and the construction of its internal space, hence, its system of daylighting. Traditionally, sunlight was the semantic filling of the temple space. As a result of the present study, it has been shown that in the newest Christian churches, daylighting techniques, in their essence, replace the pictorial filling of the temple space with religious content. At the same time, the same techniques function as a modern interpretation for a number of traditional architectural methods used for lighting design of the temple space. By the examples of the works by Studio Zermani e Associati, Mark Cavagnero Associates, Vicens + Ramos, Königs architekten, modern interpretation versions for the themes of retablo, glowing cross, highlighting the altar space, and illumination of gilded surfaces are shown, and the upper and side illumination features of the newest temples are revealed.

Assessment of Machine Learning Techniques in IoT-Based Architecture for the Monitoring and Prediction of COVID-19

From the end of 2019, the world has been facing the threat of COVID-19. It is predicted that, before herd immunity is achieved globally via vaccination, people around the world will have to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic using precautionary steps. This paper suggests a COVID-19 identification and control system that operates in real-time. The proposed system utilizes the Internet of Things (IoT) platform to capture users’ time-sensitive symptom information to detect potential cases of coronaviruses early on, to track the clinical measures adopted by survivors, and to gather and examine appropriate data to verify the existence of the virus. There are five key components in the framework: symptom data collection and uploading (via communication technology), a quarantine/isolation center, an information processing core (using artificial intelligent techniques), cloud computing, and visualization to healthcare doctors. This research utilizes eight machine/deep learning techniques—Neural Network, Decision Table, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes, OneR, K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), Dense Neural Network (DNN), and the Long Short-Term Memory technique—to detect coronavirus cases from time-sensitive information. A simulation was performed to verify the eight algorithms, after selecting the relevant symptoms, on real-world COVID-19 data values. The results showed that five of these eight algorithms obtained an accuracy of over 90%. Conclusively, it is shown that real-world symptomatic information would enable these three algorithms to identify potential COVID-19 cases effectively with enhanced accuracy. Additionally, the framework presents responses to treatment for COVID-19 patients.

Dynamic Reliability Management in Neuromorphic Computing

Neuromorphic computing systems execute machine learning tasks designed with spiking neural networks. These systems are embracing non-volatile memory to implement high-density and low-energy synaptic storage. Elevated voltages and currents needed to operate non-volatile memories cause aging of CMOS-based transistors in each neuron and synapse circuit in the hardware, drifting the transistor’s parameters from their nominal values. If these circuits are used continuously for too long, the parameter drifts cannot be reversed, resulting in permanent degradation of circuit performance over time, eventually leading to hardware faults. Aggressive device scaling increases power density and temperature, which further accelerates the aging, challenging the reliable operation of neuromorphic systems. Existing reliability-oriented techniques periodically de-stress all neuron and synapse circuits in the hardware at fixed intervals, assuming worst-case operating conditions, without actually tracking their aging at run-time. To de-stress these circuits, normal operation must be interrupted, which introduces latency in spike generation and propagation, impacting the inter-spike interval and hence, performance (e.g., accuracy). We observe that in contrast to long-term aging, which permanently damages the hardware, short-term aging in scaled CMOS transistors is mostly due to bias temperature instability. The latter is heavily workload-dependent and, more importantly, partially reversible. We propose a new architectural technique to mitigate the aging-related reliability problems in neuromorphic systems by designing an intelligent run-time manager (NCRTM), which dynamically de-stresses neuron and synapse circuits in response to the short-term aging in their CMOS transistors during the execution of machine learning workloads, with the objective of meeting a reliability target. NCRTM de-stresses these circuits only when it is absolutely necessary to do so, otherwise reducing the performance impact by scheduling de-stress operations off the critical path. We evaluate NCRTM with state-of-the-art machine learning workloads on a neuromorphic hardware. Our results demonstrate that NCRTM significantly improves the reliability of neuromorphic hardware, with marginal impact on performance.

Automatic identification and quantification of dense microcracks in high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites through deep learning-based computer vision

High-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCCs) feature high mechanical strengths, crack resistance, and durability. Under excessive loading, HPFRCCs demonstrate dense microcracks that are difficult to identify using existing methods. This study presents a computer vision method for identification, quantification, and visualization of microcracks in HPFRCCs based on deep learning. The presented method integrates multiple deep learning models and computer vision techniques in a hierarchical architecture. The crack pattern (e.g., number, width, and spacing of cracks) are automatically determined from pictures without human intervention. This study shows that the presented method achieves an accuracy of 0.992 for crack detection and an accuracy finer than 50 μm (R2 > 0.984) for quantification of crack width when deep learning models are trained using only 200 pictures of HPFRCCs and 200 pictures of conventional concrete with incorporation of data augmentation. The presented method is expected to be also applicable to other materials featuring complex cracks.

Service Oriented Virtual Machine for Maximising Quality of Service in Wireless Networks

A traditional big data network is a wireless multimedia network, as multiple video/audio streaming account for 70 percent of mobile traffic and the fifth generation wireless networks are projected to rise 500 times. However, it does raise various new and transparent challenges for multimedia big data communication over 5G wireless systems because multimedia big data services provide timely, throughput broadcasts through time-sensitive communication networks with restricted wireless resources. In order to address the above issues, we suggest in this paper information-centric virtualization architectures for a statistical latency consistency of content delivery across 5G wireless large media platforms for technology. In particular, three successful nominee strategies to promise the mathematical time limit for interactive large-data communications are implemented in our proposed scheme: information-centered network which extracts an optimum in-network storage location for multimedia big data; a virtualization of the network feature which transforms PHY architecture into many virtualized channels. In our architectures we build the 3 primary computer-generated machine collection besides power distribution plans to collectively simplify the application of NFV and SDN techniques in the ICN architecture: to improve performance for single users, to integrate effective combining capability with equity allocation for all users besides under non-cooperative betting Via models and computational assesses, we prove that our suggested designs and applications greatly perform better other existing systems to enable QoS provisioning with statistical delays over 5G immersive Large Data Wireless communication.

Characteristics of Jakarta society that need intervention to accord with the concept of Architechnopreneurship

Architecture as a form of application of science, technology and art can change space and the environment as part of human culture and civilization that fulfills the rules of function, construction and aesthetics and includes factors of safety, security, health, comfort, and convenience. Architechnopreneurship is a new concept that combines architectural techniques, technological advances, entrepreneurial values, and education which is applied in the form of housing in flooded areas. This study aims to explore the characteristics of the people of Jakarta who require intervention to have a view that is in accordance with the concept of architechnopreneurship. The research method used is the Neuroresearch method with an emphasis on the confirmatory stage. The Neuroresearch research method consists of three main stages, namely exploratory research, explanatory research, and confirmatory research. The result of the research is that there are differences in the views of the whole of Jakarta about architechnopreneurship based on gender, age, and education. However, there is no difference in the views of people throughout Jakarta about the concept of architechnopreneurship in terms of work.

Extraction of Spatial Distribution Characteristics of Jiangnan Urban Landscape under the Influence of Geomorphology

This paper presents an in-depth study and analysis of the spatial distribution of urban landscapes in Jiangnan cities under the influence of geomorphology and extracts the characteristics to explore the construction mechanism from the perspective of spatial functionality based on the analysis of the process and content of landscape construction. The construction of cities and ponds originated from political influence, environmental constraints, and architectural techniques; the landscape pattern of the combined shape and complementary potential originated from the creation of various types of gardens in various dynasties; the complementary planning of landscape, the traffic creation of the plain and water network, and the production factors of agriculture and sanitation influenced the construction of the countryside landscape; the traditional view of feng shui, poetry and painting, the eight scenes of the city and countryside, and other humanistic intentions influenced the overall situation of the town and the landscape. This paper extracts and analyzes the spatial distribution characteristics of Jiangnan city landscape from several perspectives, and the results can clearly show the distribution of landscape features under the influence of geomorphology and can give the best layout suggestions. From the perspective of spatial variability, the main features of traditional landscape construction in Jiangnan are analyzed through three levels: the characteristics of the process of humanized landscapes evolving into natural landscapes, the comparative analysis of similarities and differences in the construction of cities and towns, and the characteristics of the system of regional landscape construction. Finally, the changes in the landscape pattern of the region under the influence of globalization are analyzed through the changing characteristics of landscape architecture.

EVALUATION CRITERIA OF THE OFFICE BUILDINGS INTELLECTUALITY

The article defines the main criteria of office buildings intelligence, describes the stages of intelligent buildings formation, analyzes the profitability of the introduction of modern technical means (engineering systems) and architectural planning techniques in office buildings. At different stages of civilization, the concept of "technology" defines the path leading to future progress, and the rate of technology change is directly proportional to the rate of progress. Nowadays, artificial intelligence is extremely important for the functioning of modern office buildings, including the impact on the environment, resource conservation, safety, comfort and life support. According to research based on the works of scientists such as Derek Clements-Croome, Mervi Himannen, Akin Adejimi and others, and based on the analysis of intellectual buildings of the world from the 50s of the twentieth century to the present, 4 stages of intelligent buildings formation were identified. At the first stage (1950-1980) of the formation, separate controllers were introduced. At the second stage (1980-1995), the introduction of the "artificial intelligence" - Building Management System (BMS) - was developed and used. At the third stage (from 1995 to 2010) an intelligent building management system (IBMS) was introduced, which can independently identify threats, look for ways to achieve results and make decisions. Starting from 2010, we can highlight the fourth stage of development of the intelligent buildings, in which, in addition to the availability of the intelligent management system (IBMS), it became necessary to use approaches of sustainable architecture. The research results indicate that the office building should be classified as an "intelligent building" if it meets the following criteria: 1. Has artificial intelligence (IBMS), which autonomously manages the building; 2. Has at least 15 thousand information points, in other words, sensors and controllers, through which information is received from controlled engineering systems about the state of equipment and the environment, the state of building structures, etc.; 3. Complies with the principles of sustainable architecture, when planning and architectural techniques can minimize the negative impact of buildings on the environment through energy efficiency. The article proves that the office buildings intelligence is determined by the availability of both technological means and the optimal architectural concept, which minimize the negative impact of buildings on the environment; improve energy efficiency and conditions of the building exploitation. Therefore, further research of intelligent buildings from the point of architectural view is necessary, because a modern office building must be designed with the ability to adapt to rapid changes in technology and human needs.

The role of smart architecture in developing educational buildings To achieve the efficiency of the educational process in facing the Corona epidemic

Providing a sound learning environment for students with the spread of the Corona epidemic is one of the most important factors that the architectural and urban design must pay attention to, and with a focus on the architectural field, a large part of the epidemic spread inside buildings can be overcome with the help of modern design methods aware of the importance of preserving the environment and energy and reviewing the design of buildings. To develop its vacuums. Since architecture has a wide impact on emissions from buildings and on the impact on the surrounding environment, and large numbers of students meet with it daily to study, and it is considered one of the places most vulnerable to the outbreak of the Corona epidemic. Therefore, it is necessary to demonstrate the importance of architectural techniques in preserving the environment, as many contemporary buildings ignored the climate and its factors, so the glass shell dominated their buildings and the buildings went outside instead of inside, and their openings were exposed to direct sunlight and the depletion of energy and resources for the purpose of cooling increased. Today, the architectural designer has to use progress and technological growth to counter negative impacts on the environment, so the research will address two parts, the first part: the role of the architectural design process (smart design) in providing an environment that can face the challenges of the spread of the epidemic, the second part: the role of architectural design in upgrading the spaces used in buildings in post works.

Integrating Engineering With Nature® strategies and landscape architecture techniques into the Sabine-to-Galveston Coastal Storm Risk Management Project.

Damaging storm events frequently impact the Texas coast. In response, theUS Army Corps of EngineersGalveston District (SWG)has undertaken the Sabine-to-Galveston (S2G) Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Project. This approximately $3.9B project includes numerous measures across several counties of the upper Texas coast, including levees, floodwalls, and pump stations. In June 2019, SWG leadership enlisted a team including the paper authors to integrate Engineering With Nature (EWN) strategies into this infrastructure project. EWN strategies intentionally align natural and engineering processes to efficiently and sustainably deliver economic, environmental, and social benefits through collaboration. The first step in this process was to develop potentially relevant EWN strategies. A collaborative workshop included visits to project sites and working sessions where the project team reviewed challenges associated with each site, generated an array of EWN strategies, and began to test design concepts based on those strategies through collaborative drawing sessions. Afterward, prioritized ideas were refined and evaluated in terms of property acquisition, estimated cost, logistics, stakeholder and sponsor interest, constructability, aesthetics, recreational opportunities, and ecological benefit. Design concepts considered feasible for integration into the broader S2G project included horizontal levees, inland floodwater storage areas that double as wildlife habitat, and strategic placement of sediment berms to reduce storm impacts and provide marsh substrate. All these concepts should achieve intended CSRM outcomes while enhancing environmental and social benefits. This assimilation of EWN strategies and landscape architecture techniques into a large CSRM study illustrates a method for expanding overall project value and producing infrastructure that benefits coastal communities. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:63-73. © 2021 SETAC.

Nooks and Crannies in Visible Cities: 3D Re-imagining Techniques for Archaeology and Architecture in Film

With the success of the BBC and PBS series such as Italy’s Invisible Cities (2017), Ancient Invisible Cities (2018), and Pompeii: New Secrets Revealed (2016), made in collaboration with ScanLab and employing LiDAR scanning and 3D imaging techniques extensively, popular television programmes grasped the aesthetics of spectral 3D mapping. Visualizing urban topographies previously hidden away from view, these shows put on display technological prowess as means to explore veritably ancient vistas. This article sets out to investigate cinematographic devices and strategies – oscillating between perspectives on built heritage championed by two figures central to the 19th-century discourse on architecture: Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and John Ruskin – manipulating the image in a rivalry for the fullest immersion into a traversable facsimile of past spatialities.

BORDER SPACE OF A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING AS AN ELEMENT OF SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL COMFORT OF PEOPLE: FEATURES OF FORMATION, CHARACTERISTICS, SIGNS

In this publication, a study of the border space of the city is carried out as a conditional zone of direct contact of various social groups near multi-storey residential buildings. Based on the analysis of domestic and foreign scientific works on this topic, the characteristic features of the terms socially active boundary space and the space of the courtyard are clarified, general and distinctive features of their identification on the territory are highlighted. In accordance with the analysis of scientific works on this topic, the structure of the city's border spaces has been adjusted, which includes the following levels:
 
 macrolevel of the placement of border spaces in the city;
 meso-level geometrical and functional characteristics of boundary spaces;
 micro-level of the structure of the boundary space in the context of social activity.
 
 By analyzing the world and domestic experience of designing socially active boundary spaces, the hierarchy of their structural elements is highlighted. The main types of border spaces of the city are public, private and mixed border spaces. For example, the primary elements of the formation of any boundary space are the building itself, the street space and the inner courtyard space, which can be characterized by functional and geometric indicators. In the structure of the public boundary space, the planning and volumetric-spatial structure of the house and belonging to the transit or communicative component of the street space are distinguished. In a private and mixed boundary space, the second macro-level includes the spatial division of the courtyard into a buffer, transit and communication function. The last hierarchical level of this model is the level of structural elements that provide social activity in boundary spaces. At the planning level of the building, this is an exploited roof, a developed entrance group of elements, a system of the first floors of a residential building outside the main volume. At the level of volumetric-spatial solutions, the social activity of the boundary spaces is provided by interesting solutions of facades, low or medium storeys, the arrangement of loggias and balconies. In private border spaces at this level, such elements are niches and bay windows, terraced facades, and others. This model, due to the presence of many means of increasing social activity in the border spaces of a residential building, allows one to continue research on the allocation of architectural and spatial techniques for the implementation of projects of socially active border spaces of the city.

Design for Biological Research: Upjohn, Will Burtin, and the Cell

Abstract This article discusses the role of design in collaborative scientific research, through an analysis of the human-scaled models produced by designer Will Burtin for the pharmaceutical conglomerate Upjohn. It argues that such models triggered an intimate co-dependence between architectural techniques and biological theories, consolidating biology into a form of construction—a form of building. Within the context of corporate-sponsored scientific research of American postwar, Upjohn embraced unorthodox methods of mass media communication to engage the public with scientific narratives. It was through such unconventional techniques that design concerns—form, scale, construction, aesthetics—were placed at the forefront of scientific debates.

Energy Efficient Clustering and Routing Algorithm for WSN

: This paper presents a novel Energy Efficient Clustering and Routing Algorithm (EECRA) for WSN. It is a clustering-based algorithm that minimizes energy dissipation in wireless sensor networks. The proposed algorithm takes into consideration energy conservation of the nodes through its inherent architecture and load balancing technique. In the proposed algorithm the role of intercluster transmission is not performed by gateways instead a chosen member node of respective cluster is responsible for data forwarding to another cluster or directly to the sink. Our algorithm eases out the load of the gateways by distributing the transmission load among chosen sensor node which acts as a relay node for inter-cluster communication for that round. Grievous simulations show that EECRA is better than PBCA and other algorithms in terms of energy consumption per round and network lifetime. Objective: The objective of this research lies in its inherent architecture and load balancing technique. The sole purpose of this clustering-based algorithm is that it minimizes energy dissipation in wireless sensor networks. Methods: This algorithm is tested with 100 sensor nodes and 10 gateways deployed in the target area of 300m × 300m. The round assumed in this simulation is same as in LEACH. The performance metrics used for comparisons are (a) network lifetime of gateways and (b) energy consumption per round by gateways. Our algorithm gives superior result compared to LBC, EELBCA and PBCA. Results: The simulation was performed on MATLAB version R2012b. The performance of EECRA is compared with some existing algorithms like PBCA, EELBCA and LBCA. The comparative analysis shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other existing algorithms in terms of network lifetime and energy consumption. Conclusion: The novelty of this algorithm lies in the fact that the gateways are not responsible for inter-cluster forwarding, instead some sensor nodes are chosen in every cluster based on some cost function and they act as a relay node for data forwarding. Note the algorithm does not address the hot-spot problem. Our next endeavor will be to design an algorithm with consideration of hot-spot problem.

Leaking Secrets Through Compressed Caches

We offer the first security analysis of cache compression, a promising architectural technique that is likely to appear in future mainstream processors. We find that cache compression has novel security implications because the compressibility of a cache line reveals information about its contents. Compressed caches introduce a new side channel that is especially insidious, as simply storing data transmits information about the data. We present two techniques that make attacks on compressed caches practical. Pack+Probe allows an attacker to learn the compressibility of victim cache lines, and Safecracker leaks secret data efficiently by strategically changing the values of nearby data. Our evaluation on a proof-of-concept application shows that, on a representative compressed cache architecture, Safecracker lets an attacker compromise an 8-byte secret key in under 10 ms. Even worse, Safecracker can be combined with latent memory safety vulnerabilities to leak a large fraction of program memory.

Scientific and practical aspects of preservation of architectural and urban heritage in the development of modern architectural and restoration education

The historical, theoretical, scientific and practical aspects of architectural and restoration activities, which have observed in the aspect of the formation and development of architectural restoration education in Ukraine are considering within the article. Training issues of restoration specialists of real estate consideration is an important area of architectural higher education due to the need to replenish personnel for the development of scientific-, design- and professional activity spheres. The interdependence of the spheres of science, practice and education is a necessary condition for the preservation of cultural heritage, which currently exists as one of the important indicators of the state's cultural policy. The problem of mastering the architectural and urban planning heritage consists in the need to consider two opposing tendencies: the protection of the primary uniqueness of an architectural monument and the development of a historical urban environment with the involvement of modern architecture techniques, as a result of which historical authenticity is gradually lost and the urban environment is acquiring an increasingly universal and international character. In contemporary architectural design this problem is solved at the stage of developing urban planning documentation and detailed plans for the territory of historical areas, considering the system of restrictions on architectural and urban planning activities in the protection zones of cultural heritage objects of different use modes. The educational programs of the KhNUCEA Department of Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Objects have been developed considering professional competencies, aimed at mastering the world experience of achievements in the field of architectural and restoration education while maintaining the traditions that have developed over the years of the architectural education existence in Kharkov. The Department of Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Objects, formed in 1996, has united in its team specialists with experience in scientific and practical activities in the areas of urban planning restoration, restoration of architectural monuments, architectural archeology, reconstruction of historical objects.

Rethinking foreign influences on stone-carved tombs in early China

ABSTRACT A number of publications, including a recent paper in World Archaeology, have developed theories on why stone suddenly became a popular material for tomb construction in Han Dynasty China and how foreign masonry techniques were brought to China from across Eurasia. The object of this paper is to examine further the reception of foreign masonry architectural techniques through an analysis of stone-carved tombs from early China. It argues that the reception of foreign masonry techniques was based on the demands generated by using stone as the primary tomb building material during the Han Dynasty. Through the introduction of advanced masonry techniques, new understandings of the material world were incorporated into masonry architecture in a Chinese cultural context.